Talk:Charles Cicchetti

suspicious creation of this and other articles?
Leaving aside the current edit war over Cicchetti's declaration in the Texas lawsuit, this article was created by a user Gwaschbush, whose only contributions to the wiki have been the creation of articles about members of Pacific Economics Group, and an article about Performance-Based Regulation, with a list of reference drawn largely from the same members of Pacific Economics Group. The office manager of Pacific Economics Group is named Gretchen Waschbusch. So it looks like this and other pages came from a PR effort on the behalf of the company. Mwphil (talk) 13:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

evaluation of Cicchetti's declaration in the Texas lawsuit
If this page is going to stay up, it seems to me that it should not only include discussion of some of Cicchetti's declaration but of some of the reaction to it. There is now an edit war in which people have repeatedly deleted the reference to Justin Grimmer (the latest claiming that Grimmer has no relevant statistical expertise, which seems implausible given his Cv. ). There are other sources one could include to discuss the reaction, including David Post at the Volokh Conspiracy calling the analysis "idiotic" and suggesting that Texas Attorney General Paxton's use of it was "unethical," Philip Bump at the Washington Post calling the statistical claims "utterly ridiculous,", Matt Ford at The New Republic calling it "embarassing," , as well as Grimmer. It may also be possible to round up more positive reactions, such as Vivek Saxena at BizPacReview, and perhaps whatever is supposed to be supported by the citation to Kayleigh McEnany's twitter feed (last I saw it, the citation was just to her feed, which doesn't tell us anything about Cicchetti).

Regardless, it seems that the reaction to the declaration is as notable as the declaration, and we should at least discuss it instead of edit-warring. Mwphil (talk) 23:53, 9 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The relevant section as it appears today looks good to me. Awoma (talk) 09:43, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 December 2020
The reference to Charles Cicchetti as a current employee of Berkeley Research Group is outdated. The cite uses a bio page from the WayBackMachine and that bio page is no longer active. Stahlbaum (talk) 15:34, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Huh, it was current as of three days ago. In September 2020 a press release described Cicchetti as a managing editor of BRG. It looks like BRG has just over the past couple of days scrubbed his from their website.... yup, his LinkedIn page has him as at BRG through Dec. 2020 and at Cicchetti Associates now. https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-cicchetti-2ab69638 Mwphil (talk) 17:59, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Poorly Written Article, with Inaccuracies, Errors, and Tendentiousness
Before attempting to edit this article, since this issue seems to bring out the irrational side of some folks, I thought I would describe the severe problems from which it suffers. In general, its tone and substance is distinctly hostile toward the lawsuit brought by various states, led by Texas, contesting the process used to determine the 2020 Presidential election. Whatever one's views of the lawsuit, if the desired result is an article with an objective description of an event of some historic importance, and those participating in its adjudication, then this isn't it. I note the following deficiencies:

1. The introduction: (a) The introduction states that the Texas State lawsuit was brought "after Joe Biden won the 2020 election", which technically is not true. The specific relief sought by the case was to prevent the electoral votes from being cast since they were claimed to be invalid. One can argue about what "winning" means, and whether it's state certification or Media pronouncements, but the lawsuit did have a point, and hence it is inaccurate to state in that fashion.

(b) It states that Paxton (Texas AG) used the analysis by Cicchetti as "the basis" for his legal action. That's simply inaccurate since it was only one aspect of an entire brief. Anyone who has even flipped through the various Texas legal documents would know that it is far more broadly based than simply this declaration.

(c) It characterizes the "analysis" as "erroneous". That's something of a claim for an ostensibly objective article should make if you've read through the declaration in its entirety. The conclusion might be, I don't know statistics well enough to say, and I'm betting whoever wrote this isn't either, but the brief includes a good bit of material that is unrelated to the statistical claim of "one in a quadrillion" chance that Biden legitimately won the Georgia race. The characterization should be far less definitive, as in "has been criticized" or "controversial claim" or even "included false claims", but the blanket adjective as "erroneous" makes it look like a slapdash news article from the Huffington Post -- though maybe that's the quality some folks thinks is acceptable.

2. 2020 Lawsuit. This reads like an attack piece than an encyclopedia entry. By starting out with characterizing the subject as a "donor to Donald Trump" it makes it clear that this will not be objective. It even fails to mention that the money given was for 2016, not 2020.

The characterization of the analysis, even I can tell, is simplistic, regarding the "assumption that votes are evenly and randomly distributed among geographic regions, demographics, and voting methods, so that any two large groups of voters should generate similar results". This just repeats what some news article said, but it doesn't reflect what's in the actual analysis where the issue of voting demographics and comparison between 2016 and 2020 election voters of Clinton and Biden, respectively, is discussed. That's badly done since a good deal of the section is taken from a PolitiFact article attacking the analysis. I would say a better analysis should be included, and make it clear in the text where this comes from. The Cicchetti declaration also includes information unrelated to its statistical conclusion that merits some discussion, and makes a blanket conclusion that the entire thing is "erroneous" an overstatement.

It also should include material apart from a list of antagonistic media sources. For example, the rebuttal by Paxton in which he defends the inclusion of the material -- the following quote should be included for balance:

"In a filing on Friday, Paxton said the criticism of Cicchetti 'consists solely of ad hominem attacks' and said his analysis showing Biden underperformed Hillary Clinton in the 50 largest urban areas in the U.S. 'reinforces the unusual statistical improbability of Mr. Biden’s vote totals in the five urban areas in the Defendant States.'"

See below footnote:

The thing can be fairly described without choosing a side, and this does not sound like it was written by someone anyone would want on a jury adjudicating this case. From its tone, one might think a simple legal declaration is tantamount to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.


 * Koncorde I agree with you. Please review the comments I have posted below in the next section in my attempt to revise this page and feel free to comment. MartinWilder (talk) 02:24, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

3. Curriculum Vitae: It also only states that Cicchetti is "an American economist" and that's it. Nothing more from the CV, which had a dead link that I replaced. It might be a bit more than that in comparison with just about anybody else, that merits a page -- I don't know this guy, don't particularly have an interest, but that's pretty thin.

That's enough, I'm not saying the thing should be pro-Trump or pro-Texas, it should be pro-Wikipedia reputation -- which has taken a beating in my estimation lately, as people have more and more substantive arguments that it is skewing toward a more left-wing agenda, something that has happened in other Media venues. I don't think Wikipedia should have a political point of view -- just the Joe Friday approach, "just the facts". Sych (talk) 20:24, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * 1A. No. Joe Biden won the election per all reliable sources. Trying to explain the ifs ands or buts about what exactly the President-elect of the United States is, would require more space than is necessary to convey the information. All such reliable sources categorise Paxtons legal wrangling as "an attempt to overturn the election" or some such phrasing.
 * 1B. Pretty much all coverage of the lawsuit is about Cicchetti's analysis as it was made a talking point by McEnany, Fox and various others. Paxton himself defended it. If we want to say "as evidence in" rather than "as the basis" then sure.
 * 1C. It is erroneous. That's a relatively polite way to characterise what was patently wrong.
 * 2. Section states A donor to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign,[5] and everything else is needling at content nobody has discussed at any length because of the ridiculousness of the principle claim. Paxtons defence of it is basically irrelevant, of course he is going to defend the thing his case is using in front of the Supreme Court (an AG bad faith presenting evidence they don't believe is an issue in lower courts, never mind the SC).
 * 3. Cicchetti isn't particularly notable. Reliance on self published content is generally avoided, particularly in biographies. Koncorde (talk) 22:01, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Commenting only on Sychonic's objection #3: Cicchetti's CV is being used as a reference to support a couple statements: that he is an economist, and some of the places he's worked in his career. The CV is the tail, not the dog. By no means does the use of a CV as a reference mean that the article should be stuffed with material from the CV. Ideally, the CV should not be used at all; as Koncorde points out, that's Cicchetti's own self-portraiture, and an independent reference would normally be preferred. For uncontroversial material like it's used to support here, that's not that big a deal; but that doesn't mean that the bulk of Cicchetti's CV should be injected into the article. See WP:NOCVS. TJRC (talk) 23:25, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Prior to December, this article was little more than a puff piece. Some of the publication / authorship info is probably relevant still (if we accept he passes notability) but the vast quantity of the information provided is unquantified by any current source. Koncorde (talk) 23:57, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

2020 election lawsuit
This whole section is based on misstated quotes by Cicchetti. The quote was used in the media erroneously by Paxton, as reported by checkfact.org and also in court legal declarations by Cicchetti and statements made by the courts, deciding that the statments were taken out of context. Check and. As a result the media made wrong statements about Cicchetti's quotes, because it was not exactly what he had said. I attempted to revise and correct this issue, but another editor Snooganssnoogans has reverted. I would like to discuss it here. I will revert back, but don't want to go into edit wars, so if you have good argument why it should not be according to Legal Docs and FactCheck.org, please post here first and let's discuss. MartinWilder (talk) 03:37, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * On Wikipedia, we rely on WP:RS, not on our own reading of primary source documents like the court documents that you're linking to. In your edit, you remove or rephrase a multitude of reliable sources, and claim in your own WP:OR that the RS "falsely described" Cicchetti's claims. Even if you read the document that you link to, Cicchetti literally says in the summary that the election results are "extremely improbable", "statistically improbable" and "astronomical." The guy is misusing statistics to falsely claim that the election results are highly improbable (which is exactly what all the RS say about his claims, including FactCheck.Org). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 11:59, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I would have to disagree with your assessment. Let me respond to each of your statements.

You said: On Wikipedia, we rely on WP:RS, not on our own reading of primary source documents like the court documents that you're linking to.

Court document is not a primary source when the judge or court states facts. In addition, the court has accepted and agreed with Cicchetti' statements and declarations, at which point it is no longer considered a primary source. This is the section that you should read on supremecourt.gov (page 2 and 3)

''"I. DEFENDANT STATES’ FACTUAL ARGUMENTS LACK MERIT. Defendant States’ factual defense of the administration of the 2020 election lacks merit. Thus, Texas states a claim on those issues. A. Pennsylvania’s critiques of the evidence are false. Pennsylvania attacks Dr. Cicchetti’s probability analysis calculating that the statistical chances of Mr. Biden’s winning the election in the Defendant States individually and collectively, given the known facts, are less than one in a quadrillion. Penn. Br. 6-8. Pennsylvania argues that Dr Cicchetti did not take into account that “votes counted later were indisputably not ‘randomly drawn’ from the same population of votes” in his analysis. Penn. Br. 6-8. Pennsylvania is wrong. First, Dr. Cicchetti did take into account the possibility that votes were not randomly drawn in the later time period but, as stated in his original Declaration, he is not aware of any data that would support such an assertion. See Supplemental Declaration of Charles Cicchetti (“Supp. Cicchetti Decl.”) ¶¶ 2-3. (App. 152a-153a). Second, although Pennsylvania argues that such data is 3 “indisputabl[e]”, Pennsylvania offers in support nothing other than counsel’s assertion. Unsworn statements of counsel, however, are not evidence "''

The bold part above is the most important, in which the court agrees that "Pennsylvania is wrong," and it implies that they had misstated Cicchetti's analysis. Court and legal docs are an acceptable form of citation per Wiki guidelines.

Factcheck.org says:

"The court filing says the claim is based on an expert declaration written by economist Charles J. Cicchetti. But that’s not exactly what Cicchetti wrote in his analysis of election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Instead, Cicchetti said he tested whether the ballots counted in those states until 3 a.m. on Nov. 4 were from a similarly random pool of voters as the ballots counted in the hours and days after. He also tested whether Biden’s performance in those states was statistically similar to Hillary Clinton’s in 2016."

'You said: In your edit, you remove or rephrase a multitude of reliable sources, and claim in your own WP:OR that the RS "falsely described" Cicchetti's claims. '

You must be referring to this statement: The media falsely described Cicchetti's analysis as "ludicrous," "comical," and "statistical incompetence"

If you want to get technical, yes there is not an article that states these were falsely stated. However, it can be revised in this way: The version of the Cicchetti quote that Paxton had used was described as "ludicrous," "comical," and "statistical incompetence."

If this is not acceptable, we can still expand on this based on available citations to clarify that the labels the media made were based on the wrong quotation.

'You Say: Even if you read the document that you link to, Cicchetti literally says in the summary that the election results are "extremely improbable", "statistically improbable" and "astronomical." The guy is misusing statistics to falsely claim that the election results are highly improbable (which is exactly what all the RS say about his claims, including FactCheck.Org).'

He is not misusing the statistics, rather the media have mis-used his quotations to something else and misunderstood it. If you read his court declarations, he has clarified what he has meant.

Finally, here is a quote from a Factcheck.org and a Stanford University professor, who is surely providing a reliable assessment and probably has higher credentials than most journalists that have mis-quoted Cicchetti and failed to do proper research:

"I think the Texas [attorney general] intentionally misrepresented what Cicchetti said,” Justin Ryan Grimmer, a Stanford University professor of political science, told us in a phone interview. “The Texas AG took the Cicchetti analysis to a conclusion that I don’t think Cicchetti says at all in his analysis."

MartinWilder (talk) 02:22, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * We can quote Grimmer (though I know little of his expertise) about the AG taking it to a conclusion (i.e. the Supreme Court) but the rest of the argument wants it both ways regarding how RS actually reported the rather transparent maths fnangling. There are probably better RS discussing Paxtons behaviour although this article isn't really the place for it.
 * Present argument seems to want us to take Cicchetti's word about just why he wrote such silly numbers on a paper specifically about those states in question, and did so for some unknown and entirely innocent purpose, and Paxton came along and took it all too far. This neither resolves the issue that his analysis has been critised in isolation (i.e. regardless of the court case, his analysis is bunkum for the reasons that he himself actually says that it was bunkum), and that his court stated get out clause of "well of course there's data I don't know to explain this" and "I was only testing if the populations were the same" appears to be a belated attempt to apply veneer of plausible deniability. However, as RS point out; it was well known prior to the election there would be a reversal in counts as postal ballots were counted. So... it's not a defence of his analysis.
 * If Cicchetti didn't want his analysis apparently misrepresenting by Paxton he shouldn't have written it and submitted it as an Expert Declaration.
 * If Cicchetti didn't want his analysis using for the purposes it was used for he shouldn't have written it and submitted it as an Expert Declaration.
 * Per his words "I was asked to analyze some of the validity and credibility of the 2020 presidential election in key battleground states. I analyzed two things that seem to raise doubts about the outcome."
 * Per his learned opinion that his statements are not about being misrepresented "The statistical differences are so great, this raises important questions about changes in how ballots were accepted in 2020 when they would be found to be invalid and rejected in prior elections."
 * Per his intent "In my opinion, the outcome of Biden winning in all these four states is so statistically improbable, that it is not possible to dismiss fraud and biased changes in the way ballots were processed,

validated and tabulated. Ifthe efforts to uncover mistakes and violations are completed, I would not be surprised that there could be a reversal in the outcome of Biden winning in some or all of these four battleground states"
 * All of which fundamentally undermines attempts to pretend his analysis was mis-used or the criticism invalid, even if we were to accept that Paxton drew conclusions not explicitly stated. Koncorde (talk) 10:57, 8 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Koncorde It's a little hard for me to understand exactly what you are saying. However, much of what you are saying here is your own evaluation, which is considered original research WP:OR and cannot be used. If you can find articles that state what you say, then provide the links please. We cannot use Cicchetti's own statements from court documents or declaration, unless the judge has specially agreed with that portion of his statements, in which case it will no longer be a primary source. I provided a citation from factcheck.org and I also provided citation from the court document and the judge specifically stating

"Pennsylvania is wrong. First, Dr. Cicchetti did take into account the possibility that votes were not randomly drawn in the later time period but, as stated in his original Declaration, he is not aware of any data that would support such an assertion. "


 * So let's get to the bottom of this and raise a vote to see how many will agree or disagree with the below specific edits. Please just post AGREE or DISAGREE with your comment.
 * 1) Intro: I propose the initial paragraph to change from:
 * Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton used an erroneous analysis by Cicchetti as the basis for his unsuccessful bid ...
 * to:
 * Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton used an analysis by Cicchetti erroneously as the basis for his unsuccessful bid ...


 * REASON: According to Court Docs and FactCheck.org, "it was not exactly what he said."


 * 2) 2020 lawsuit 1st paragraph I propose the "2020 lawsuit" to be revised to clarify that Paxton has misstated Cicchetti.  The paragraph can include some of the quotations from court docs.


 * 3) 2020 lawsuit 2nd paragraph I propose to remove the complete 2nd paragraph of  "2020 lawsuit,"  because the media comments were based on the wrong version of Cicchetti statements.

"Cicchetti's analysis was described as "ludicrous," "comical," and "statistical incompetence" by several academics.Kenneth Mayer, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said the analysis "is going to be used in undergraduate statistics classes as a canonical example of how not to do statistics." David Post, a law professor at the Beasley School of Law, wrote that "Cicchetti's analysis—for which, I assume, he was paid handsomely—is merely silly, irrelevant, and a total waste of time."PolitiFact rated Cicchetti's claims "Pants on Fire." A 2021 PNAS study by political scientists at Stanford University and the University of Chicago rebutted Cicchetti's analysis as being not even remotely convincing. " MartinWilder (talk) 00:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * What I said isn't OR. What I said was a summary of the issues you face to overturn the weight of sources by trying to frame their body of work as a mistake because of a very specific reading of another source. I then provided quotations that specifically are why the sources recognised his work as nonsense and summarised it as such.
 * In short it doesn't matter about the nuance of why Cichetti's analysis was bunkum, or that Paxton made a mess of the same analysis - so as to your changes it's a No, No and a No. I could understand rewording the opening para in some fashion but it would need an actual authoritative source specifically saying everyone else is wrong but it'd still have to presented with WP:DUE. Koncorde (talk) 19:30, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * And, just to clarify: neither of these documents are a Judges opinion. One is the primary submission to the court by Paxton (see page 16). The second is the response by Paxton to the States response. The Supreme Court specifically declined to hear the case. We are therefore being asked to use Paxton to correct Paxtons assertions that Pennsylvania are responding to - and Paxton has already been accused by Grimmer of having "intentionally misrepresented" the submission.
 * To that end, using Grimmers single sentence to somehow change the intent of Cicchetti's analysis doesn't gel with any further coverage by Grimmer, or the other experts on FactCheck, nevermind those in other sources. A criticism of Paxtons conduct is not a defence of Cicchetti's analysis.
 * On the actual analysis, Grimmers twitter thread is now deleted - but he and some colleagues did write a paper explaining a lot of the context to the claims and it his tweets are archived here where it is clear he is not making any defence of Cicchetti's analysis. Koncorde (talk) 23:19, 13 January 2022 (UTC)